LWV DelCo Environmental Clearinghouse
Delaware County Environmental Clearinghouse
For those who take a seat on one of four benches that the Penn State Extension Master Gardeners of Delaware County have installed at Smedley Park, they’d likely never suspect that they’re sitting on thousands of pounds of recycled plastic bags, bubble wrap and stretchy plastic film.
A liquid natural gas export terminal would not be welcome anywhere in southeast Pennsylvania, community and expert speakers told the PA House Environment and Natural Resources Protection Committee Nov. 5. Committee Chair Greg Vitali said he called the hearing because of the fear that the LNG project is advancing out of sight of public scrutiny.
The world is hurtling toward climate chaos, according to a major new report published Oct. 29 by 13 prominent climate scientists in Bioscience, a forum of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now, and the window for mitigating the worst outcomes is rapidly closing, they warn.
Billions of gallons of raw sewage continue to flow down the Schuykill and Delaware Rivers from Philadelphia and Camden due to storm overflow days every year, according to a new report by Penn Environment. Activists want something to be done about it.
The Pennsylvania House Envionemntal and Natural Resource Protection Committee will hold a hearing in Chester Nov. 5 on the proposed Penn American LNG export terminal.
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission will amend the Fiscal year 2025 Transportation Improvement Program for the region to include a $2 million plan to add electric vehicle charging stations to 18 Delaware County parks, libraries and county offices. The public can comment on the plan until noon on the day before the DVRPC’s next meeting, Oct. 23.
HB 441, a bill to protect more than 100 species of native insects, including many pollinators, passed the Pennsylvania House by a party-line vote of 102-101. It now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate. Write or email your state senators and ask them to support it.
A bill introduced in Philadelphia City Council Sept. 18 would prohibit the city from contracting with companies that incinerate its trash and recyclables. Currently about one-third of Philadelphia’s waste is sent to the Reworld (formerly Covanta) incinerator in Chester. Most of Delaware County’s municipal waste is also burned in the incinerator.
The Delaware County Council has accepted the county Sustainability Commission’s zero waste plan that promises to work towards an 82% reduction in solid waste, increase the efficiency of the county’s waste disposal practices and reduce costs.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission is involved in a process to allow electric grid operator PJM to charge its ratepayers across 13 states an estimated $70 million a year to keep the Eddystone oil-and-gas power plant operating. The DOE ordered the plant, on the brink of retirement, to keep running for two three-month periods this summer and fall and it is unclear whether the order will be made permanent. The Trump Administration plans to order Forty coal plants across the country to keep operating as well.
